This deck is interesting. I'm not in love with thraben inspector. It is fair magic card, but it isn't a non creature spell, so it is a strike vs. Delver, but it has been okay in hatebear shells. I like seeing delver 5-0, but I think thraben isn't where we want to be.

This deck is interesting. I'm not in love with thraben inspector. It is fair magic card, but it isn't a non creature spell, so it is a strike vs. Delver, but it has been okay in hatebear shells. I like seeing delver 5-0, but I think thraben isn't where we want to be.

I thought the same thing. It was very interesting to see and the extra card off of the clue is nice, but I feel like the strength of the deck is in it's pressure. I have never tested thraben inspector so I can't say too much, but I feel like monastery swiftspear would be better.

Hi,
I haven't posted anything in a while, so let me tell you the few news I have to tell
One week ago I finally bought MTGO and the deck I already own in paper.
The deck hasn't changed a lot during the last months, only some minor tweaks.
Here it is:

I am playtesting/training to use at the big tournament in Hamburg in 2 weeks.
The landbase is a bit different now because I want to play both Shinka & Eiganjo. They are really good with Geist & Clique and some opponents might overlook Shinka since they are not used to it. The problem however is, that the deck uses far more blue mana than red/white, but the lands produce all colors about equally. So far it hasn't been a problem since 8 fetches help me to even get UU consistently on turn 3-4 but it looks off on paper. Any advice?
The other minor tweak I made is to the SB. I cut Stone Rain and added Sulfur Elemental instead. Stone Rain is awesome sometimes but under pressure I often didn't find the time to cast it because it doesn't advances my board state. It's only good when I am already ahead. Sulfur Elemental negates one of the biggest problems for this deck: Lingering Souls. It's also very good in another difficult match-up: Taxes. Flash & Splitsecond also make it good against control lists and decks that use board wipes in general.
With the main board I am still pretty happy. Sometimes I wish my Spell Snare would be a Dispel, but I guess it would just as often be the other way around if I would run 1 Dispel main instead.

It doesn't really fit here but let me also write some thoughts about MTGO. After two years of playing Xmage it's quite different...just not at all like I expected. I thought the players would be more pro and competitive and the software would be really bad but in fact it is the other way around (so far).
After getting used to it the software is really nice to use and so far I always found an opponent without any waiting time and stumbled over no bugs.
However, even though I use the "tournament practice" room many opponents give up really quickly like children and only 1 out of 3 players even greets back (at Xmage almost every player greets). And many players run strange decks that are not part of the current metagame. I played against UG Control, Mill (2x), Treasure Hunt, Ponza (2x), Goblins... Was that just bad luck?
Well, so far my winning percentage is at about 75% and I am happy about that, but I wish I could test more often against the "big ones" (Shadow, Eldrazi, Storm...)

Hi,
I haven't posted anything in a while, so let me tell you the few news I have to tell
One week ago I finally bought MTGO and the deck I already own in paper.
The deck hasn't changed a lot during the last months, only some minor tweaks.
Here it is:

I am playtesting/training to use at the big tournament in Hamburg in 2 weeks.
The landbase is a bit different now because I want to play both Shinka & Eiganjo. They are really good with Geist & Clique and some opponents might overlook Shinka since they are not used to it. The problem however is, that the deck uses far more blue mana than red/white, but the lands produce all colors about equally. So far it hasn't been a problem since 8 fetches help me to even get UU consistently on turn 3-4 but it looks off on paper. Any advice?
The other minor tweak I made is to the SB. I cut Stone Rain and added Sulfur Elemental instead. Stone Rain is awesome sometimes but under pressure I often didn't find the time to cast it because it doesn't advances my board state. It's only good when I am already ahead. Sulfur Elemental negates one of the biggest problems for this deck: Lingering Souls. It's also very good in another difficult match-up: Taxes. Flash & Splitsecond also make it good against control lists and decks that use board wipes in general.
With the main board I am still pretty happy. Sometimes I wish my Spell Snare would be a Dispel, but I guess it would just as often be the other way around if I would run 1 Dispel main instead.

It doesn't really fit here but let me also write some thoughts about MTGO. After two years of playing Xmage it's quite different...just not at all like I expected. I thought the players would be more pro and competitive and the software would be really bad but in fact it is the other way around (so far).
After getting used to it the software is really nice to use and so far I always found an opponent without any waiting time and stumbled over no bugs.
However, even though I use the "tournament practice" room many opponents give up really quickly like children and only 1 out of 3 players even greets back (at Xmage almost every player greets). And many players run strange decks that are not part of the current metagame. I played against UG Control, Mill (2x), Treasure Hunt, Ponza (2x), Goblins... Was that just bad luck?
Well, so far my winning percentage is at about 75% and I am happy about that, but I wish I could test more often against the "big ones" (Shadow, Eldrazi, Storm...)

Good to hear from you Stevomat. I too am on MTGO. You can add me is a "friend" if you want. Our player tags are CurdBros and CBBrewer (we have two because there are two of us hence the "bros" ).

I have played my build online as well, but rarely find time to do a league. I have made a resolution to try to play more leagues to try to get a 5-0 and hope the deck gets posted.

As for the list, it looks great to me. I have waffled on Clique in my list and always end up putting it back into my sideboard or cutting it. With that said, my list is a bit more aggressive. 3 Boros Charm and 1 Jeskai Charm seems like a lot. I always found that with several boros charms they sometimes were stuck in my hand. This is especially true with two emerge unscathed which also protect your threats. The only two major cards that I like that are missing are remand and Vapor Snag. However, I can see why they are not in your list. Your list is a bit more like a burn deck with actual removal, not so much like a pure tempo list. You are finishing the game quickly with burn, unblockable threats with emerge unscathed, and countering spells you can. Therefore, I don't think those cards are absolutely necessary. My suggestions if it were my deck would be to cut the Spell Snare (I just personally hate that card) and 1 boros charm and add two Remands. Remands are especially good against some decks right now like Eldrazi tron (when they don't have cavern), regular tron, titanshift, etc.

Now on to MTGO. I don't test much online because I normally test in person. I have found that there are basically three types of people for the most part in leagues. The first group is the grinders who don't talk at all. Sometimes they will say "gl" at the beginning, but that is it. Other than that they are great to play against. They play very well and play somewhat fast. The second group is the "keyboard warriors". Like you said above, they rage quit very early and often let you know you are a terrible player or are playing a stupid deck. Sometimes they will tell you what went wrong or how bad you played. These are much fewer and far between, but are an absolute pleasure to play against :). Then the unicorns of MTGO are the kind and helpful players that are both good players and are enjoyable. I have ran into these players multiple times and some people on MTGO are great to play against and are super kind. I have had multiple people say "great play" or "awesome" when I play Emerge Unscathed. When you find someone you really enjoy you can add them as a friend and maybe have a playing partner for the future.

I prefer to use MTGO as a portal to test and to get the deck list published. One thing that you will notice and it appears you already have noticed is that the MTGO metagame moves a bit more quickly towards the new best deck and is a inbred meta game in terms of leagues. You see a lot of very linear decks. Currently its RG titanshift as the popular deck. It was dredge, death shadow, etc. There is also a lot of storm right now. The decks that are always on MTGO are burn and affinity as well. It is somewhat rare to catch a midrange deck to test against. A lot of people play linear decks to try to get easier 4-1 finishes. With that said, I have played against everything online. If you play enough you will play against Mill, Control, Ad Nauseum, etc. In addition, if you play in the testing room you will play against much stranger decks on average. However, people do quit very early in that room sometimes. I too, have never had a problem with the client. My brother had a problem with a card being glitched for a long time, but other than that I think the client is very easy to use and looks good too. Overall, I really like MTGO and I think it gets a bad rap.

Just had a very interactive and highly entertaining match so I recorded the replay. First time I tried the software. Seems okay. My opponent made a few mistakes that cost him the game but I still think this is more interesting than the average MtG vids on Twitch

Just had a very interactive and highly entertaining match so I recorded the replay. First time I tried the software. Seems okay. My opponent made a few mistakes that cost him the game but I still think this is more interesting than the average MtG vids on Twitch

That was pretty awesome Stevomat! I love watching the videos. You played very well. I loved knowing that that block was going to be awesome with Emerge Unscathed. He actually fought back pretty well, but your cards just matched up much better than his. Awesome match.

I'm sure the list will change a little with testing, but this has been my starting point. To be honest, I took them out of my test deck once I saw there were only two spots in the number crunch for the letters M, N, and O. This is my starting point.

As for testing, here are the main points if you don't want to read on:

-Opt smooths out our land drops- even more digging so we can play 17-19 lands now
-Opt makes our counter magic better- we can now hold up counter spells and still dig through our deck
-Opt feeds our spell hungry monsters- gives snapcaster, bedlem reveler, and grim lavamancer more food.
-Opt gives Snapcaster Mage an instant speed way to draw a card on opponents turn making him much more of a proactive beater.

Opt has been as good as advertised. It doesn't change the deck competely or reinvent the wheel, but i like to think of it as the glue that allows are deck to stay together. It really helps us have a proactive game plan and switch to reactive if necessary.

The single best new skill we gain is the ability to play a proactive Snapcaster Mage at the end of the opponent's turn and gain a card from Opt. It makes our snapcaster mages just that much better. I probably need to add a fourth snapcaster to the list.

The second most important gain in my opinion is that opt has also helped make our counter magic a ton better. Being able to hold up counter magic and still dig through the deck is sooooo beneficial. I know your thinking "no spit" CurdBros, but until you play with opt it is hard to overstate just how much better it makes our counter magic. It will also allow us to shift to a more controlling deck much easier for that reason. There were multiple times already in testing that I would have to decide whether to serum visions early in the game while I had a Remand or Spell Pierce in hand and with opt you can just hold up counter magic and opt at end of turn.

Third, I have always struggled with how many lands to play. I want to run 18 but that always seemed to risky for a longer event so I typically went with 19 or 20 at 61 cards depending on my curve. My curve is very low right now so 19 at 61 has been great. Now with opt adding additional ways to filter, 19 lands feels very stable and I feel like I can get to 3-4 lands and continue to draw spells and put lands at the bottom of the deck.

Finally, opt helps us with our prowess count as well as food for snapcaster, reveler, and lavamancer. I think an overlooked aspect of the printing of opt right now is that it also makes young pyromancer and Monastery Mentor much better options for modern. I wouldn't be surprised if young pyromancer in particular makes a huge resurgence in modern. I will have to give Young P and Mentor a try in the sideboard. Although opt is an instant, it can still easily be played at sorcery speed as a one mana cantrip to make prowess even better.

I haven't done a ton of testing, but I definitely will be over the next week or so. I will let you guys/gals all know how it goes. I am excited to play with our new toy and I think it helps delver decks the most. It does a great job as a sort of glue that can help our deck be proactive while at the same time having disruption. It basically helps us add smooth tempo to our tempo deck.

I have heard some people say opt will be banned, but I really don't think so. There are many times where I basically "cycle" opt at the end of a turn. I scry and then keep that card on top and draw it. So I don't think its to over powered. I do think it will allow tempo style decks to become tier 2 decks immediately.

Thank you for the short and informative post!
It really sounds like the deck benefits a lot from Opt and making pyromancer better is a huge deal, for me at least.
Do you think Opt is about as powerful as probe, for our deck at least? Probably not, but instant speed cantrip is pretty dope.

Do you think we can afford to play more 3, 2 and 1 offs with the inclusion of Opt and still be consistently drawing those Spells?
I mean we have to cut some cards to play a Playset.

This makes me wonder if going down on Threats a little bit but playing more impactful ones could be the way to go. Just as you said Curdbros, reveler becomes way better, so do snapcaster and lavamancer.

Speaking of snapcaster, you are only running 3, are you having any problems with not running the full playset of the best blue creature in modern?
Have you encountered scenarios where got thought the 4th snapcaster would win you the game our give you a window to do so, or stall out somewhat longer?
I am curious, on one hand I wanted to try it out too, on the other hand I just can't justify not playing 4.

Thank you for the short and informative post!
It really sounds like the deck benefits a lot from Opt and making pyromancer better is a huge deal, for me at least.
Do you think Opt is about as powerful as probe, for our deck at least? Probably not, but instant speed cantrip is pretty dope.

Do you think we can afford to play more 3, 2 and 1 offs with the inclusion of Opt and still be consistently drawing those Spells?
I mean we have to cut some cards to play a Playset.

This makes me wonder if going down on Threats a little bit but playing more impactful ones could be the way to go. Just as you said Curdbros, reveler becomes way better, so do snapcaster and lavamancer.

Speaking of snapcaster, you are only running 3, are you having any problems with not running the full playset of the best blue creature in modern?
Have you encountered scenarios where got thought the 4th snapcaster would win you the game our give you a window to do so, or stall out somewhat longer?
I am curious, on one hand I wanted to try it out too, on the other hand I just can't justify not playing 4.

Thanks Mazeron.

I agree. I cut my threats down slightly due to the fact that we have a ton of deck manipulation now. I am only running two Geist of Saint Traft now because he is much easier to find now and is so hard for the opponent to kill. I also cut both Slip Through Space to make room for Opt. While slip through space is a great card for prowess and for geist, it was really in the deck to add another cantrip and to have an additional added benefit of getting our creatures through. Opt is just a better cantrip for our deck and something had to be cut. I'm still running the one of Emerge Unscathed because I just love being able to attack through the opponents board and to protect our threats. I will always have a one of emerge unscathed in the deck. The final card I cut was Soul-Scar Mage. I think he will join the sideboard for GBx decks if I have room. Like you said above we can cut some threats and since we now have s ton of turn one options I didn't think he was necessary.

I do think Young Pyromancer is the single biggest winner of the inclusion of Opt in modern. I'm not sure how many players have thought of that yet, but as soon as one deck runs both opt and young p and does well I think a lot of players will jump on board. There are a ton of Young P fans out there and now that she has a instant speed cantrip she should be a ton better. I hope opt also helps me with my Monastery Mentor deck as well.

As for the comparison of Gitaxian Probe vs Opt, I still think probe is more powerful. The fact that it is free (2 life) and gives you a look at the opponent's hand is just huge. I don't think the gap is far, but now that probe is gone I can see that it was truly busted.

I do think we can run more 1,2,and 3 ofs with opt. Mainly because we can see so much of our deck during a given game. We can basically find what we need. I am notorious for already running several 1,2,3 ofs so my deck doesn't change much, but opt just smooths out our draws so much. I tested again last night and the deck just feels soooo much smoother. I noticed that I always felt like my hand was full of cards. I did notice that opt slows the deck down slightly. I was winning a lot of games with attacks for 3-5 damage every single turn and keeping their board clear. I still won several games by going aggro and burning the opponent out, but it was much easier to play the tempo role (especially in games on the draw) if I had to.

Finally, as for snapcaster; running is really a mana consideration for me. I have a very low curve and only run 19 lands so I only run three copies. Snapcaster is really a 3 or 4 drop because you want to flash back a spell so I don't really consider him a 2 drop. More like a 2.5 drop. As you said, with opt I may have to reconsider this and run a full playset because the best blue creature in magic just got that much better.

I feel like my personal build has reached a very good point. I will be testing thoroughly with this puppy. I am also going to be tinkering with a mentor list in my off time. It's a great time to be brewing for the jeskai players!

Here are the first testing notes from modern testing. I can't play opt tonight at the modern "FNM" because it isn't out yet, so I will share the notes from our testing gauntlet. We treat it like a normal FNM and play against random decks that are currently doing well in the meta. Here are the notes

Match 1- Eldrazi Tron

G1- This was a fairly dominating performance. I was on the play and had a delver. I was able to echoing truth his Expedition Map on turn two which slowed him down a ton. I landed a Geist on turn three and the delver flipped. He never really got anything going. He played a Matter Reshaper which I Vapor Snagged and finished him off fairly easily.

* I updated my sideboard a bit and have removed Hazoret and Chandra as the midrange decks in my area have gone down in popularity.

G2- Remand did some major work in this one. I think I cast two regular remands and one snapcaster-remand during this game to maintain tempo. He was able to get tron by turn 4 but remand and ceremonious rejection kept most of the big threats off the board. I took chunks out of his life with two swiftspears throughout the game. He landed a reality smasher and a chalice on 1, but it was too little to late and I was able to burn him out with helix and boros charm.

I don't think this is a typical result for this matchup as I typically have a tougher time beating eldrazi tron and have lost to this matchup more than I would like to admit. He never landed a turn 2 chalice on 1 which can be an absolute lock on us. Opt allowed me to hold up remand in game two so it did do some work.

Hi CurdBros, grats!
I love this new illustration and I wish I could play it in my deck but as you know I am not comfortable with running UUU cost cards
But the card looks super sweet!

I tweaked my deck a bit and added 3 more cantrips (1 Electrolyze, 2 Remand for 1 Valorous Stance, 1 Spell Snare, 1 Boros Charm) and I changed 1 Clique main board for 1 Lavamancer. (pic attached)
In the tournament practise room I still run into a lot of brews but my record this week is 10-1 so far so I am somewhat confident for the tournament this weekend.

Decks with life gain are the ones that give me the most trouble so I am still considering at least 1 Skullcrack in the SB. I also started thinking about Hazoret. She should be a perfect fit for this deck as a 1-of to provide more reach. What do you think? Has someone tested her mainboard?

Hi CurdBros, grats!
I love this new illustration and I wish I could play it in my deck but as you know I am not comfortable with running UUU cost cards
But the card looks super sweet!

I tweaked my deck a bit and added 3 more cantrips (1 Electrolyze, 2 Remand for 1 Valorous Stance, 1 Spell Snare, 1 Boros Charm) and I changed 1 Clique main board for 1 Lavamancer. (pic attached)
In the tournament practise room I still run into a lot of brews but my record this week is 10-1 so far so I am somewhat confident for the tournament this weekend.

Decks with life gain are the ones that give me the most trouble so I am still considering at least 1 Skullcrack in the SB. I also started thinking about Hazoret. She should be a perfect fit for this deck as a 1-of to provide more reach. What do you think? Has someone tested her mainboard?

I love the changes you have made to the deck. I personally love more cantrips because they feed snapcaster, grim lavamancer, and bedlam reveler. Two cards that have been really over performing for me lately are Remand and Emerge Unscathed. I have won several games off the back of emerge unscathed and remand just seems to be really well positioned right now. So adding additional remands seems like a great idea, especially given that you are more on the burn side of the spectrum.

I too hate decks with life gain. With a low creature count, life gain is even worse for a deck that relies more heavily on burn to deal lethal damage. Luckily, there isn't a lot of life gain in the meta right now. Soul sisters is an auto loss for us most of the time, but that is a matchup we just kind of have to give up on for the most part. Kitchen finks can be annoying, but path deals with him. Cards like Wurmcoil Engine and Batterskull are the single best feeling targets for Deflecting Palm. There really isn't much we can do short of adding Skullcrack. If you have an empty slot give it a try, but I am not to worried about life gain right now because it is so rarely seen.

As for Hazoret the Fervent, I did run her main for a bit and I was pleasantly surprised. Overall she was a great card. Now with opt in the picture I decided to cut her from my sideboard because I have found that, more often than not, I have several cards in hand. I can unload most of them before playing bedlam reveler so I could likely do the same with Hazoret, but I decided to keep reveler. In your case, I would suggest giving Hazoret a try main. Because you run a more burn oriented list with less creatures, you can easily go face with any remaining cards and activate Hazorets ability with additional lands. She would also help with the life gain decks because you add an additional source of reoccurring damage by adding another beater to your low creature count.

All-in all I think your deck looks awesome. I am currently working on cleaning my list up a bit and prepairing for when Opt is legal. I will post my list as soon as I am done with listing my testing notes.

When is your tournament? Best of luck if I don't talk to you before you head to the tournament!

Thanks. The event starts on Friday. I can win byes for the first two rounds there. Saturday is the main event and I guess I'll be playing for 10 hours. Never played that long and I hope that I can stay focused.
I really want to try Hazoret because I really miss playing a 4-drop. Elspeth, Hero of Bladehold, Venser... I love these cards. Hazoret is easier to cast though with her 3R cost. Which card would you cut for her?